2013-04-30

A VISIT TO A 17th CENTURY VILLAGE part.2: Homesteads and Outfields

Today we
are going to investigate the village
of Stjärnholm once again,
this time focusing on the homesteads themselves and the information we can find
about them in Notarum explication. For more about this village, please read my
earlier post!

The village of Stjärnholm, with the homesteads marked

Notarum explicatio

The first thing usually described on each
homestead is the name of the farmer. These names are very common even today,
and almost all of them have surnames ending with “-son”. In this particular
village we have two farmers (in homestead 1 and 3) surnamed “Larsson”. We
cannot be sure that these two are related to each other as this is a common
surname, but as they inhabit the same village it is quite likely.

After the names comes the land owning nature
of the homestead, such as “krono”, “skattekrono”, “frälse” etc. If the land is
“frälse” (owned by a noble) sometimes the name of the nobleman/woman or the
estate is noted.

The third thing described is the value of
the farmers’ land in the unit “öresland”. Öresland is a unit that does not
necessarily describe the amount of
land; it can also be a description of the revenues. The exact meaning of this
unit seems somewhat uncertain depending on what area you are investigating. In
Uppland, there seems to be a quite clear correlation between öresland and tunnland. In the YGK-project we are converting all land values into
the same unit, called penningland (1 öresland is the same as 24 penningland) which is more common in
this period. This is done in order to make the statistics from various areas
comparable with each other.

After this, the annual revenues of the
homestead are described. Each homestead usually use the two field system and
therefore the revenues are described for each year of farming.

Under the revenues, you can sometimes find
information on areas used by the farmer which lie outside the village (in Swedish
“utjordar”), often in a neighbouring area. Sometimes the revenues for these
patches of land can be found in the homesteads description, but most of times this
is described in another map, if such exists. More on this below.

Another thing to note here is something
found above the description of the homesteads. We can usually find information
here about the outfields (though it is not really fields) of the village. The
outfields or the “outlands” (perhaps
a better term) of a village are usually used for grazing, gathering of
firewood, fishing and some hunting. Outlands are usually not described in
detail, but the quality is defined by terms such as “good fishing” or “almost
no firewood at all”. In this case we can read that the outland of Stjärnholm
consists of bare ground which provides poor grazing.

Now we will
investigate the homesteads:

Homestead number 1: This is a ”skattekrono” homestead
inhabited by Erich Larsson. The farmers’ land is worth 14 öresland (336 penningland).
We can see that one year the revenues of the farmed field are 12 tunnor and 11, 19/87 cappor. Next year the revenues are 9 tunnor and 19, 3/87 cappor. The surveyor has calculated the mean value of the revenues
from these two years and written down the result in the row to the right. To
calculate the total area of the fields we simply have to multiply the mean
value by 2 (as this is a two field system). The result is: 21.945 tunnland. The meadows bring in 15, 39/87
sommarlass of hay each year.

This farm
also owns three patches of land in other areas. Specifically these areas are:
“Wreeta”, “Fänsgiärde” and “Fittja parish”. If these areas are mapped or not we
cannot at the moment know. All that can be said is that they do not exist in
the same volume of maps (named A16).

Homestead number 2: This is a “frälse” homestead
inhabited by Johan Mattzon. The farmers’ land is worth 14, ¾ öresland (354 penningland). The mean value of the revenues is: 11 tunnor and 17, 163/174 cappor. This means that the farmed
fields are 23.121 tunnland. The
meadows bring in 16, 24/87 sommarlass
of hay each year.

Homestead number 3: This is a “frälse” homestead
inhabited by Johan Larsson. The value, fields and meadows are the same as
number 2. Here it is also noted that number 2 and 3 have common land in an area
called “Fänsgärde”.

About me

My name is Oscar Jacobsson and I am a graduate student at the department of Archaeology and Ancient History at Lund University in Sweden.
This blog is dedicated to the discussion of medieval landscapes in many different ways, though my main interest lies in the relationship between natural and human landscapes. Therefore most of the published material will concern this subject.
Feel free to contact me on:
oscarjacobsson@live.com